New York Travel Diary 10th May 2010

Monday 10th May

Waking up in the morning, our crashers were there, and chilling out, socialising some more. Food was the order of the day, so I whipped up a spinach and carrot omelette that fed them some, served with lactose-free milk, regular milk, and soy milk. We talked more until the middle of the day or so, where I did some job searching while Fang was filling out forms for her residency position coming. It was a fairly uneven ful day in all really.

Later on however, there was a dinner party to go to, on Park Avenue, at the home of one of her advisors that had helped write the Deans Letter (a assessment and observation of her life at the university over the years under the watchful eye of the advisor). The gentleman (and I mean gentleman, a true one at that) was Dr Brabeck, and his wife, Dr Brabeck. Their home was a civil war era building, and their apartment was on the back corner of the first floor, with a private sunken courtyard that was amazing. Their home, furnished tastefully with antiques and art, including Asian arts such as Tibetan tapestries and beautiful pictures of life and people in S.E. Asian countries. They also had an incredible sculpture done by a family friend, who had got to know a prisoner and sculptured their face. The only problem was being sensitive to their Jewish friends, so they would cover the sculpture when they visited since the prisoner was one of Hitlers generals during the 3rd Reich. Even still, it was really nice, a bas relief carving of an old man with a sorrowful face, and a hand held up as if pressing against the stone itself being an invisible wall, in almost a Han Solo carbonite style.

The dinner was nibbles and drinks to start with, and a very talkative Dr Hopkins, an attending surgeon who also serves with the MSF, or the Doctors without Borders (MSF is French, its Medicines san Frontiers or something like that). She has been divorced from what she said, single still and probably will be for a long time, neurotic, and very verbose. Gave lots of advice and I could see her being extremely cheery if she got drunk. She apparently also takes hip hop lessons weekly and is learning how to “pop” at the moment. Dr Brabeck and his wife however were much more quiet, but giving a gentle presence. He was a hospitalist and practiced internal medicine, while his wife was an applied psychologist and also the Dean for the Steinhardt School at NYU. Talking to them was good, albeit conversation brief. They gave me their support with words for anything that I chose in the future, and should I decide to do the DPT (Doctorate in Physical Therapy) at NYU, Dean Brabeck would help as best she could if I got back in contact with them. Nice of them to offer, and I might take it up. Dinner food was catered food brought in, noodle, sushi, broiled vegetables, rice, with chocolates and cake for dessert and fortune cookie. My fortune cookie was the usual nonsensical material you often find, pretty unmemorable (I had to look at it just then) that said it is better to light a small candle than curse the darkness. Fangs said “What is the speed of dark?” to which, I would think, the same as the speed of light since once light is gone, darkness returns at the same rate.

The end of the dinner was a group photo, even with me included, so years down the track, someone may look and wonder who I am, and where I ended up, pondering my medical career that simply just does not exist, yet. It’s really a photobomb in the sense that I shouldn’t have been there lol not that I ruined it though.

We walked back from Park Avenue in the wind and slight chill, and pretty much settled down to go to bed for the night.